Complications That It Brings
by OfTinMenAndPaperHearts
Summary: With a gravity bomb in a Kree temple about to destroy the Earth, Daisy is the only one who can stop it. But with the video of the last time she was seen alive, Daisy doesn't believe she'll live to see if time can be changed. When Yo-Yo suggests the Ghost Rider help, she sees hope; then she realizes his role in Coulson's illness. Robbie can only help if she doesn't kill him first.
1. Prologue

**As I said in the update on my profile page, I'm taking a small hiatus from Locked in Space to wait for my muses to return, which I'm hoping they will when I get this and one other fanfic out of my head. As soon as I wrote in my profile that I probably wouldn't be posting this story, Dua Lipa's No Goodbyes came up on Spotify, and since the song has the same tone as this story, I found the inspiration to keep writing. The title is from the song but, while it kind of works as a soundtrack, this isn't a songfic.**

 **The second we found out how Coulson got sick, all I could think of whenever I tried to write was how Daisy would react when she saw Robbie next—did he _know_? Even more than whether or not he knew it would kill Coulson _before_ he let it possess him (deals with the devil generally come _before_ the possession, no?), the question of whether he knew while he was helping her on the plane is what really drives me nuts. As much chemistry as they had, that was the only time they got anywhere near flirting. Anyway, I needed to work out my frustration, so this is the story about that. **

**Started after Principia, tried to edit in some of the info from later episodes, but mostly based on stuff we knew at that point.**

 **4/19/18**

* * *

 **Prologue**

Daisy sat at the control panel in the lighthouse, looking blankly at the screens as she tapped an anxious rhythm on the tabletop.

They had less than a week left.

How could they still not know whether breaking the loop was even _possible_? After months of searching for answers, the team had discovered that Hale's Confederacy cronies had put a gravitonium-infused bomb deep down in one of the ancient, underground Kree temples. The tunnels were guarded 24/7 by a legion of alien confederates, almost entirely made up of species they had never seen before. With so many unknown and possibly powered factors in play, with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s depleted numbers, the only time they could strike was right before the blast, when the alien confederacy had evacuated.

They knew Daisy could compress the gravitonium out of the explosive device into a container to carry it out, and that she had the best chance of escaping before the bomb went off. But knowing the probability of success–or even survival–was incredibly low, Daisy had refused the team's pleas that she not go in alone. There wasn't much of a chance that she would get even the gravitonium out in time and she wasn't about to let someone else sacrifice themselves.

After months of knowing she was never seen again after that video of her heading to the epicenter, Daisy was okay with dying; prepared for it even. But the fact that she would still be recorded heading to the epicenter alone weighed on her. She would have no way of knowing if they had stopped the destruction and broken the loop—or if they were even able to—if she died down there. There were only two things that would let them know for sure: what happened on that tape, and whether or not the Earth exploded. Nothing else had come with a timeframe attached. In an ideal world, the two events would take place more than a few hours apart, but the way things stood, their only chance to prove beforehand that she was even _capable_ of stopping the second event was if something drastically different happened on that tape.

They had tried to talk her out of going in alone—Coulson and Yo-Yo in particular—but there was no way around it: Daisy was the only one who could deal with the gravitonium. Each member of the team had offered to come with—hell, Coulson offered to go just so Daisy wouldn't be alone if things went bad—but beyond just the Kree's mind-controlly security precautions, another person would likely slow her down, Coulson in particular. He was deteriorating faster than any of them had expected.

Yo-Yo was the only one even capable of helping get the gravitonium to the surface, but she was only just learning to use her new arms. Besides, even if she ran the container of gravitonium to the entrance to be lifted out, she would snap back to where she started and be in as much danger from the non-gravity-but-still-super-explosive bomb as Daisy.

She snapped out of her thoughts as Mack sat beside her at the table, no doubt to try again to convince Daisy to take someone with, or to the entrance of the Kree city at the very least. Daisy cut him off before he could start. "It's useless; you know that," she said calmly, sipping on her whiskey and ginger. Simmons would probably make some comment about self-medicating, but Daisy wasn't really in a mood to care. It was the first calm night since they'd gotten back, and she'd needed a drink since the moment she saw the Earth in pieces. "I can quake the gravitonium up the shaft; I won't need help to lift it out. And I can get myself out the same way. There's no need for anyone else to be near the epicenter of the end of the world."

Mack looked at her in frustration. "You know damn well that those tunnels could be crawling with LMDs even after they evacuate the people."

"And _you_ know damn well I can fight them. Besides, who would I take with me? You? In a hurry to get possessed again?"

"You know I'm not, but if it's a choice between that and you going in alone—"

"You're not gonna be helpful as a rage monster, Mack." Daisy sighed, leaning her head in her hand, "And we still don't understand what made that happen to you and not the others, just that alien tech can react badly with human biology."

Mack looked like he was going to argue, but a noise from the entryway made them both jump. Yo-Yo leaned against a wall, looking pensive. "So, what if we send in someone who isn't human?" They gaped at her.

"You can't be serious—"  
"You're in no shape to—"

"Not me," Elena interrupted. "The man on fire."

* * *

 **Super short chapter to introduce the setting. I'm not sure how long it'll be, maybe just two or three more chapters, but I'm planning it as I go. I'm trying to do it a different way than Locked in Space which has like 27 pages of bullet points and half-written scenes that plan it out from beginning to end.**

 **This season has been driving me crazy with what seems like foreshadowing Robbie's return only to have nothing happen. First, The Real Deal (am I the only one who got excited when fake-Mike exploded because it kinda looked like Robbie did it?), then The Devil Complex...**

 **So, back to the Spotify thing: in trying to get my muses back, I made a Quakerider Spotify playlist (it's public if anyone likes fandom-based playlists), and one of the other songs (Red's Let It Burn) inspired a true QuakeRider songfic that I should be posting sometime soon. Thankfully, it won't be anywhere near the size of Locked in Space, and it's basically the story's polar opposite in terms of action, so it'll also be a good palate cleanser for my brain.**


	2. A Painful History

**I have like two more scenes in my head for this story, so it'll continue at least a little but I'm still not sure how long it'll end up.**

 **"Lemons." So much funnier when you take into account the fanfic definition of the word.**

 **~1500 words**

* * *

 **A Painful History**

Daisy paced back and forth in the concrete hallway, nervously checking her watch every twenty seconds.

 _Not long now…_

Working with S.H.I.E.L.D. before had ended with him unexpectedly spending significant time in other dimensions, so Robbie was taking the time to say a proper goodbye to Gabe. She had been fine when the others were still up, but because of the time difference, he wouldn't get there until late. The rest of the team had left the control areas of the Lighthouse for the bunks a while ago, supposedly to take advantage of the otherwise uneventful night to catch up on sleep, but Daisy had a sneaking suspicion they'd wanted to give her and Robbie the chance to reunite in private.

Any other time, that might have been warranted, even welcome. Any other time, Daisy probably _would_ be nervous about seeing him again. Instead, her mind was occupied with a cacophony of anxieties and doubts about another subject entirely.

 _Could she really survive this?_

Her desire to stay in the future had never been because she truly believed she had quaked the earth apart, but because just the _possibility_ was too awful to risk it. But in the weeks since they'd learned of the Confederacy's plan to make a gravity bomb–long before they knew the specifics–Daisy found herself thinking again and again about the video Voss had shown her. Causation of something on the scale of the planet cracking apart was unlikely to change from one loop to the next. If it was a bomb now, it probably was the last time too, so how could she not wonder why the blame had fallen so thoroughly on her shoulders?—why that was the last time anyone ever heard from Daisy Johnson?

Whatever they'd done last time, however they'd failed to stop it; she had died trying.

Whether or not the Earth, to quote Voss, "cracked like an egg" depended mostly on how far the gravitonium was from the explosion, whether it was out of the confined space of the tunnels. The farther it was from the concussive force of the blast, the smaller the effect on the gravitonium and the lower the magnitude of the quake that resulted. Daisy's job was just to get it as far away as possible with the hope that it would be enough, but no matter how far she got, she would still be in the blast zone. The gravitonium would be subjected to _less_ of the explosion, but an explosion all the same. They'd evacuated the entire area above because even a reduced earthquake would destroy the city at least, likely much more. Even if the blast didn't kill her, Daisy knew she would absorb as much of the earthquake as she could; so, she had grown comfortable with the idea that she wouldn't have to see what happened to the world if she failed.

She didn't believe Fitz's theory that time couldn't change—she _couldn't_ —but Daisy knew they'd been through this loop at least once before; with no idea what they'd done last time, the chances of repeating their mistakes were high. She could do everything in her power to be faster this time, to get the gravitonium farther away, but she probably did all the same things last time too, thinking of beating the time before that.

But Robbie, he could make a portal to the other side of the world, or to a different dimension; they could get the gravitonium and themselves so far from the explosion that it didn't matter at all. After all the time they'd spent trying to prevent the end of the Earth, it almost seemed like cheating.

Daisy paced the hallway, back and forth, over and over, trying to think of what they must have missed. If preventing this was so easy, why had they not done it before? Maybe the Daisy she'd watched angrily storm off from the Quinjet had been alone because the video _she'd_ seen had been of her and Robbie heading to epicenter together; maybe there were two alternating loops, one alone and one with Robbie, in both they fail and the next Daisy saw the video and changed to do the other—

 _Ugh!_ Paradoxes were the worst. Just thinking about that gave her a headache.

Daisy went to the kitchen to pour herself another drink, needing something to dull her thoughts just enough that she couldn't go down that rabbit hole. There was still a little while before Robbie was due to arrive anyway; no reason to pace a hole in the floor while she waited. Daisy went lighter with the alcohol this time, still hearing Jemma's voice in her head. It was so much harder to ignore when she _knew_ she was self-medicating.

Downing the drink in just a few swallows, she went back to the hallway and leaned against a wall. The thing she was most worried about was failing to stop it and _surviving_. That seemed to be the cruelest fate. Every human being was a slave in that future, but the ones who became Inhumans were told that to be a slave—to fight for entertainment, to be used as a tool; to be _sold_ —was something to be celebrated.

She didn't want to see how the world became _that_.

She didn't want to watch heroes become worse than legend; cautionary tales to avoid if you want to stay alive.

She didn't want to watch Coulson die.

Daisy had spent her whole life without anyone to look out for her. The nuns, guardians, foster parents; everyone who should have cared her had betrayed her eventually. Everyone who should have protected her—even those few she thought actually would—had left her when the going got tough, and, far too often, when it hadn't; just abandoned her without so much as a _"Sorry, but I'm not coming back."_

And she'd been left wondering, again and again, what she could have done differently, done better; who she could have been to make them stay.

Coulson was the first person to ever stay by her side—even when she had screwed up so bad, he had no logical reason to. Daisy had been used to people leaving when she'd done nothing wrong, but Coulson stood by her through _everything_. Through finding out she'd joined his team under false pretenses, through learning she wasn't entirely human, through everything she did for Hive; through leaving the team that had never left her. He was _always_ there for her.

It was only because of Coulson that Daisy had begun to trust people— _really_ trust them. After everything she had gone through growing up, Ward's betrayal should have broken her, made her unable to trust anyone again. But even as she left with Ward, Daisy had known Coulson would come for her.

 _How could she live in a world without him?_

Daisy closed her eyes, shifting her head to allow the cool concrete to hit the scar on her neck. She had bigger things to worry about; bigger things to be _angry_ about than Coulson's refusal to save himself. She could, on some level, understand his decision to not heal himself again through Kree blood—it had, after all, not been a good experience for him the first time. Besides, Daisy didn't want to spend what little time they had left being angry.

A _fzzt-_ sound nearby made Daisy open her eyes, and the smell of smoke wafted through the corridor. _He was here._ Daisy pushed herself off the wall, moving in front of the trail of sparks and smoke slowly forming a ring in the middle of the hall. Her mouth pulled into a smile. Robbie's presence had always been a bit distracting, and Daisy needed that right now.

As the ring of fire and smoke became fully formed, Daisy was able to see through to the other side of the portal like it was a lightly warped window pane. As he walked toward her from what looked to be his kitchen, Robbie's eyes met her own, and he grinned. It wasn't a huge smile—Daisy wasn't sure he ever smiled like that—but the kind he'd had when they were talking on the Zephyr before everything went down with Aida.

Her own smile faltered.

 _Oh, God._

Daisy's lungs constricted. She had the oddest feeling in her wrists; like her blood was running backward, withdrawing to her chest. She wished it was unfamiliar.

Coulson had said he hadn't known what the price would be before the merge; before the whatever-it-was realized he was living on borrowed time. The rushing in her ears grew into thunder.

The last time Robbie smiled at her like that was right before Coulson became the Ghost Rider.

When he had helped her later, the way that he'd looked at her…

 _He knew._

* * *

 **Why are they preparing the Lighthouse to be what it was? It didn't occur to me until I was writing this, but there are actually three ways to prove they can change stuff. 1. The Earth doesn't get destroyed, 2. There's something else on the video, and 3. There is no Lighthouse. Need to prove that time is changeable? Blow that shit up.**

 **I am so sick of the Invincible Three. Is there some theory of time travel that I'm missing where you can't be killed because time doesn't change, but you can change the hell out of everything else? At least Fitz has been consistent with his 'we can't change it, we never could,' but Simmons and Yo-Yo were all 'we're gonna do things differently this time, use our invincibility, and go to a Hydra outpost and stop it all from happening.' Simmons is supposed to be a super genius; she should realize the transitive property applies. I can't wait til Deke finds out and yells at them for just accepting that his mother, who dedicated her life to the idea that they could change things (likely because her parents raised her believing it), will die a horrible, violent death.**

 **I was not expecting it to get so dark with Ruby. Couldn't the writers have let her (and us) have a few seconds of happiness with the knowledge that Werner genuinely loved her before the rest of it happened? I mean, the main thing about her character was that she felt completely devoid of love her entire life. Geez.**


	3. Responsibility

**Well, Infinity War broke me. No spoilers up here, but WTF?! On one hand, I honestly liked it. But on the other... just WTF?! I love that AoS has had tie-ins (because something that big happening on the same planet in the same universe/reality needed to be acknowledged and with more than just a throwaway "I can't watch the news") but WTF are they gonna do if they get a season 6**?

 **My plans for what stories I'll be writing have changed somewhat. I do think there's some value in continuing this story past the few scenes I had planned but with IW, I have a story in my head that I've been planning just as a way to get to the next movie (but mostly to the next season of AoS) without going insane. I'll say a bit more about it in the post-story A/N, but the point is, I could wrap up this story with some not meticulously-thought-out ending, or it may be another long-ish story (definitely not super long) with really long breaks. I'm leaning toward the second, but let me know what you think.**

 **Warnings: Language, post-story authors notes may have IW spoilers (I tried to make them non-specific, but still), so if you haven't seen it, don't read that part**

 **822**

 **5/5/18**

* * *

 **Chapter 3: Responsibility**

The moment her face changed, Robbie knew he'd made a serious miscalculation.

Before they'd started running together Daisy had done her homework; looked into him, into what he'd done as the Rider… Robbie had done so many terrible things these past five years, he'd never understood why Daisy trusted him; how she even _could_. Compared to the other stuff, keeping this thing with Coulson a secret hadn't seemed so bad. Clearly, he was wrong.

In that one moment, he'd lost her trust.

Just a second before, Daisy was sporting the sweetest lopsided smile, one that tugged up one side of her mouth while the other pursed. Like she was fighting it and losing. Robbie smiled back; he couldn't help it. But the light faded from her face the moment he did. Midway through the portal, in that odd moment where he was in neither place, Robbie watched as Daisy shuttered herself, her smile fading to a stony mask—one that looked right through him, eyes unseeing.

As he emerged on the other side, that emotionless mask began to crack. Daisy's lower lip quivered once; she pursed her lips to stop it. Her gaze refocused, and for a second, met his own. A pained expression he'd hoped never to see directed at himself flashed across Daisy's face, and she tore her eyes away.

Robbie was no stranger to regret, but even he was shocked by the force of the emotion that hit him now. It bowled him over like a wave, left him disoriented, struggling to breathe. Robbie knew that look; he'd seen it on the faces of his victims. The ones whose friends had begged for their own lives by giving them up; telling him their worst sins in the hope that their own might pale in comparison. It was the look of visceral betrayal when one didn't want the traitor to know how much it hurt.

Daisy had finally realized she was wrong to trust a monster.

He knew from experience that not knowing your actions constituted a betrayal didn't make it any less of one. Tío had had no way of knowing his actions would lead to that car crash, but it didn't make Robbie hate him any less. Keeping Coulson's secret was the least of his sins; Robbie _knew_ the devil always came with a price, but he'd stood by as it made a deal with the man. He'd warned him at least, but it hadn't made a difference. The man was still dying.

"You knew on the Zephyr." She didn't ask, just stated it, although she was clearly looking for a response.

Robbie's chest tightened, knowing she was asking only about keeping the secret. A bit of hope found its way into the smoldering scrap of his soul.

He promptly killed it.

He wouldn't blame the Rider's effect on someone she loved on some cruel trick of fate. Robbie had known the risk beforehand and let the deal happen. _There is no luck,_ he told himself. _Just actions and consequences._ And his actions had caused Daisy pain.

* * *

Robbie had stopped walking toward her as soon as he was through the portal—probably maintaining a respectful distance; she'd noticed that he did that—but she wasn't falling for the 'honorable' act anymore. When he didn't respond, Daisy dragged her eyes back to him, fighting how badly they wanted to look at anything but Robbie and cursing how mortifyingly watery they were. Like this moment needed to be any more humiliating, now she was fucking holding back _tears_.

When her eyes finally landed on his face, she drew a ragged breath. He was standing ten steps down the hall from her, arms at his sides, the heavy chain in his hand forgotten. But the regret on his face… _No_. Her mouth made a grim line, and Daisy willed the emotion out of her. She stood tall, though her arms drew tightly around herself, and didn't bother asking again. He'd heard her.

Robbie's eyes though… she couldn't tell what they were asking of her. Despite the distance between them, with that look, it felt like he was a foot away; close enough to hold her, to touch her. She could feel his warmth from here. Daisy took a step backward, her breathing rough.

Now his eyes flashed something she _could_ read. As closed off and conflicted as his expression was, just for a second his eyes pleaded with her not to back further away, not to have him say it and make her. Daisy stumbled backward a step, trying to swallow away the panicked lump in her throat. _No, no, no, no, no._

That expression was so familiar.

With her eyes, she made a plea of her own _._ _Just say it._ He had to admit it; before she asked again. Robbie's eyes closed for a moment, then he opened them, looked her in the eye, and nodded.

"I knew."

* * *

 **Some Ward issues coming to the surface now...**

 **Stop reading if you haven't seen Infinity War.**

 **This is just some random shit for the people whose eyes automatically went to the next line.**

 **Sorry if the next part seems like I'm freaking out, but honestly, I am.**

 **Okay. So. Infinity War. WTF?! The MCU is gonna be nuts for the next year, which is fine for the movies because Ant-Man and the Wasp seems to be happening concurrently and Captain Marvel is in the 90s but what the freakin fuck are the shows gonna do? I'm 100% certain that the people who got dusted will be coming back in Avengers 4 but Agents of SHIELD will air between now and then. It kinda worked when I thought Avengers 4 came out over winter break but then I found out it's happening in May so now I'm just lost. But I had a theory for when I thought only a few episodes would be out before Avengers 4, and I fleshed it out enough, I think I can write it into an ok story, though it would be something totally new for me, and seems like it'd be really complicated to write. I know I can't be the only one losing my shit over what's gonna happen with Agents of SHIELD (and just the general MCU) and is looking for a way to get a good outcome or just any fucking conclusion at all before the next season/movie release. But since I do have multiple stories in development and this may make them slower, let me know what you think.**


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